As early April approached, things were starting to get interesting. This year’s red stag hunt on the West Coast was shaping up to be a special one. I had three weeks scheduled off work for the Roar, and my good kayaking friend, Captain Phillips, was keen to get the entire hunt on film.

Although Phil’s not a deer hunter himself, he’s been travelling the world with his wife, Rata, for the past 10 years filming whitewater kayaking. Our ultimate goal – what we really wanted – was to capture on film the perfect arrow-flight kill-shot of a big red stag on public land. With Phil’s camera skills and my hunting experience, we were gonna give it a good go.

In the months leading up to the Roar, I was shooting my bow as much as I possibly could. My intention was to be fully in tune with my bow and thoroughly prepared in order to give myself the best chance of performing well while Phil filmed everything with his camera.

South Westland – the First Day

March seemed to take its sweet old time to get gone. I was pretty excited to be driving to South Westland on March 29 – a fraction early for my liking, but with bad weather forecasted, we had to make this window work.

The plan was to float pack rafts down to the ocean over three days and hunt the river flats and swamp country along the way. At the ocean, we’d then paddle north to our shuttle pick-up in Jackson Bay. With a compulsory Haast pie and the shuttle organised – thanks to Rata – we were finally on the water by early afternoon.

Arriving at camp with about half an hour of light left in the day, we sat and listened, hoping to pinpoint some roaring stags for tomorrow’s bush stalk. Disappointingly, we heard only birdsong and a trickling creek, so we set up camp and had dinner.

A few too many teas with dinner had me up for a midnight piss. I was pleasantly surprised to hear four different stags roaring round camp!

A Big 8-Pointer

As soon as day broke though, the stags stopped roaring. We headed out regardless and stalked some bush zones where it was known that the deer like to hang out. After four hours of bush stalking and spooking hinds, we called it quits and headed back to camp for breakfast.

Midday rolled round quickly as we broke camp and got into our still-wet paddling gear. This can be a drag sometimes, but today we were eager and hopeful about what we might come across downstream. A few quiet kilometres passed as we paddled in silence, listening for stags roaring. Finally, I turned back to Phil with an excited grin as we both heard a big roar no more than 200 metres in front of us.

While coming ashore, switching into hunting kit and checking the wind, the roars remained persistent and became more frequent. We were able to move at a stealthy pace as we were on a nice game trial with minimal scrub. We were only 50 metres away from the stag, which was roaring well. We’d been waiting months for this, and it was truly something else!

With arrow nocked and the camera rolling, I let out my first roar and got a near instant reply – far louder and much gruntier than mine. The stag let out another roar and broke away from his hinds running in to about 30 metres, but scrub was obstructing my shot. He was a big, heavy-framed 8-pointer!

Time froze … we froze … and the stag curiously looked our way. He just needed to take another couple steps and a shot would’ve been on … but he turned and circled away. I let out another roar to try to bring him back, but he kept moving farther away, picking up his hinds and dissolving into the thick bush.

One Lone Chamois

There was excited chatter about the encounter as Phil and I walked back to the river to start paddling again. We knew there was a small chamois population coming up, and we snuck onto the clearing with a strong wind gusting into our faces expecting a mob to be out feeding on the grass. There was only one lone chamois right at the bottom of the flat.

The stalk couldn’t have been more in our favour: a perfect wind, noise from the creek to mask our approach sounds, and a well-positioned bank that helped us stay out of sight and brought us right into range. Stalking with excitement, I drew a couple of deep breaths to calm myself just before we popped over the rise. Sure enough, 24 metres away was the chamois. I could only see its bum while it was feeding well, and it wasn’t long before it turned broadside. My limb clicker clicked, and I released the arrow.

The shot was a little high, but nonetheless, the chamois only made it five metres down the bank before collapsing. Upon closer inspection, this buck had a very impressive set of hooks. He’s my best chamois shot with the recurve bow to date.

We took some photos and sorted the meat out. We’d have to wait till we got home to put a tape over him, but I was guessing he was going to be just under 9.5 inches.

Six Hinds and a Huge Stag

Spirits were through the roof with excitement. With 45 minutes of light left and a couple stags roaring downstream, it was shaping up to be one of the best days hunting I’ve ever had. The roars got louder and more frequent the closer we got.

I had a good idea of what the clearing was like where all the roaring was coming from, because I’d shot a great 8-pointer there the previous year. The path to reach it was a multi-choice puzzle through flax and kahakaha. It was challenging to move quietly, and so we slowed right down to make every step calculated and precise.

As I edged around the last flax bush, before we got a look onto the clearing, I could see the stag through the overhanging flax leaves. A couple more steps and we were in full view. Six hinds and a huge stag, preoccupied with one of them, were scattered about 45 metres away over the other side of the clearing. We stood patiently and contemplated our next move. The wind was okay, and none of the hinds knew we were there. It was something else to be watching for five long minutes as the stag chased hinds and roared just out of shooting range. This was some real front-row-seat action.

Then, right when the sandflies were getting bad, the stag turned and chased a hind straight towards us! I drew the bow. He stopped front on for a split second, then turned and trotted out of sight. I let the bow down as slowly as I could, but a couple of the closer hinds saw this movement and started making their way off the clearing. I thought it was all over and they’d start barking and spook the stag. In fact, it turned out to be perfect, because the stag saw his hinds moving away, which brought him running back towards us stopping broadside at 12 metres. I was already at full draw when he stopped, and in a split second, I released the arrow.

The stag didn’t make it off the clearing before collapsing. Lost for words, we walked the short distance to where he was piled up. We felt so much joy and a great sense of accomplishment – we’d done exactly what we’d set out to do.

We set up camp on the same clearing as it was getting dark by now. Watching the footage of this hunt that evening on Phil’s camera with a warm cup of tea in my hands is something I’ll never forget.

What seemed like a well overdue sleep-in followed by a big breakfast had us on the water again just before 9am. We enjoyed an uneventful float out to the ocean and the rest of the day had us rock hopping and paddling our way to the State Highway. With cirrostratus clouds forming and a dark wall of cloud approaching from the south, we were happy to see our shuttle and enjoy the comforts of a car again.